So. Fish oil brands.

I used to take fish oil supplements (GNC brand) last year, but I fell out of the habit. Now I'm trying to get back on because I really dislike (most) fish. I was going to go Nordic Naturals, but it's something like $40 US for a bottle of 60 @ 1k mg or there abouts. Goodness.

Last night at the CVS, I spotted a $9 bottle for 60 @ 1.2k mg if I remember.

If you are going to buy Omega 3 from CVS buy the Algal-900 DHA. It doesn't have that fishy after taste.

Algae is the only plant source of Omega 3 DHA (I believe all other plant sources are ALA) and is source from where wild caught salmon gets it Omega 3s. Your body needs EPA and DHA.

Your body can covert the DHA to EPA much more easily than it can EPA to DHA. Flax oil, for example, is ALA so your body needs to convert it into EPA and then to DHA. According to Matt Lalonde the conversion rate from ALA to EPA is .2%. So for every $100 of ALA you buy you only get about 2 cents worth of EPA. ALA to DHA is nearly 0. Lalonde believes the supplement of choice should be DHA.

Ok, that the long winded reasoning behind saying... read the label and if it says Omega 3 ALA put it back on the self. Don't waste your money. You want the label to say EPA and DHA or just DHA.

Would I be putting a grain-feed cow on a fad diet if I took it out of the feedlot and put it on pasture eating the grass nature intended?

I get wild caught sardines delivered every month and I go through those like water. I love the taste. I stopped taking fish oil pills about a year ago, maybe more. I do take cod liver oil about three times a week, even though it's not quite the same.

I just bought the Carlson's brand FO off Amazon. It can be also chewed. Prior to that I've used the GNC brand for a while. Whatever kind you get make sure the expiration date is not within a year or so and that you store it in a refrigerator.

Just figure if you buy some cheapo fish oil, it's gonna be from farm-raised fish (lots of health concerns there, especially with the new GMO AquaAdvantage salmon out there), and it could be whatever oil was left over after the good stuff was strained out for the expensive brands (that's true of cheap olive oil, I've heard--it's the runoff from the expensive stuff, yuck).

I dunno, fish oil creeps me out. If you're going to take it, I think you'd better spring for the expensive stuff that actually makes some health claims. Maybe you need more practice cooking salmon--it can be tastier and less fishy if you cook it a little longer than seems necessary, from my experience, though even wild fish makes me wary nowadays, what with how much pollution is in the waterways... industrial waste, all the poop from the factory farms, sewage... it's still (probably?) better than the farm-raised stuff.

I order my fish oil from Vitamin World. I get the triple strength capsules, almost a thousand miligrams of epa and dha fish oil in one capsule. They say to take one capsule a day, but my cardiologist said 2. $29 for 180 capsules. They seem to be doing the job. Hope this helps.

If you do a search, you'll find a lot of these conversations. Robb Wolf, Chris Kresser, and Paul Jaminet have all written extensively about this subject. Eating 1lb of fatty fish a week is much better than taking fish oil. If you insist on fish oil, you want to take fermented cod liver oil. If you won't take that, then something like Nordic Naturals, as a bandaid.